War and Peace : Book 07, Chapter 08

1869

People

(1828 - 1910) ~ Father of Christian Anarchism : In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From : Anarchy Archives.) • "It usually happens that when an idea which has been useful and even necessary in the past becomes superfluous, that idea, after a more or less prolonged struggle, yields its place to a new idea which was till then an ideal, but which thus becomes a present idea." (From : "Patriotism and Government," by Leo Tolstoy, May 1....) • "If, in former times, Governments were necessary to defend their people from other people's attacks, now, on the contrary, Governments artificially disturb the peace that exists between the nations, and provoke enmity among them." (From : "Patriotism and Government," by Leo Tolstoy, May 1....) • "You are surprised that soldiers are taught that it is right to kill people in certain cases and in war, while in the books admitted to be holy by those who so teach, there is nothing like such a permission..." (From : "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)

CHAPTER VIII

Count Ilyá Rostóv had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility
because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did not
improve. Natásha and Nicholas often noticed their parents conferring
together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the fine
ancestral Rostóv house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary to
entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal, and life at
Otrádnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the enormous house
and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty sat down to table
every day. These were all their own people who had settled down in the
house almost as members of the family, or persons who were, it seemed,
obliged to live in the count’s house. Such were Dimmler the musician and
his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belóva, an old maiden
lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as Pétya’s tutors, the
girls’ former governess, and other people who simply found it preferable
and more advantageous to live in the count’s house than at home. They had
not as many visitors as before, but the old habits of life without which
the count and countess could not conceive of existence remained unchanged.
There was still the hunting establishment which Nicholas had even
enlarged, the same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the
same expensive presents and dinner parties to the whole district on name
days; there were still the count’s games of whist and boston, at which—spreading
out his cards so that everybody could see them—he let himself be
plundered of hundreds of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked
upon an opportunity to play a rubber with Count Rostóv as a most
profitable source of income.

The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe
that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and
feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and
patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt
that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count’s fault for
he could not help being what he was—that (though he tried to hide
it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his
children’s ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position.
From her feminine point of view she could see only one solution, namely,
for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their last hope
and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she would
have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match was
with Julie Karágina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents, a
girl the Rostóvs had known from childhood, and who had now become a
wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers.

The countess had written direct to Julie’s mother in Moscow suggesting a
marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from
her. Karágina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and
everything depend on her daughter’s inclination. She invited Nicholas to
come to Moscow.

Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that now
both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him married. She
said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that were accomplished.
Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl and tried to discover
what he thought about marriage.

At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow
during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his mother’s
remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations induced her
to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting their
affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie Karágina.

“But, Mama, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you expect
me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?” he asked
his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only wishing to
show his noble-mindedness.

“No, you have not understood me,” said his mother, not knowing how to
justify herself. “You have not understood me, Nikólenka. It is your
happiness I wish for,” she added, feeling that she was telling an untruth
and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.

“Mama, don’t cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I will give
my life, anything, to put you at ease,” said Nicholas. “I would sacrifice
anything for you—even my feelings.”

But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not want
a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice for him.

“No, you have not understood me, don’t let us talk about it,” she replied,
wiping away her tears.

“Maybe I do love a poor girl,” said Nicholas to himself. “Am I to
sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mama could
speak so to me. Because Sónya is poor I must not love her,” he thought,
“must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly be
happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always sacrifice my
feelings for my family’s welfare,” he said to himself, “but I can’t coerce
my feelings. If I love Sónya, that feeling is for me stronger and higher
than all else.”

Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the
conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes
with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and
the portionless Sónya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not
refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sónya, often pulling her up without
reason, addressing her stiffly as “my dear,” and using the formal “you”
instead of the intimate “thou” in speaking to her. The kindhearted
countess was the more vexed with Sónya because that poor, dark-eyed niece
of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to her benefactors,
and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in love with Nicholas,
that there were no grounds for finding fault with her.

Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had
come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have
been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly
reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till
the beginning of the new year. Natásha was still as much in love with her
betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as ready to
throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at the end of
the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits of depression
which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was
being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone—while she felt
herself so capable of loving and being loved.